Time’s 100 Best Novels 1923-present

Bil asked the question: how many of Time’s list of 100 Best Novels have you read?
41 of them. Most of them in high school or college English classes. When I read the list I was disappointed at what was missing and some of the crap they included. These people can’t tell me they actually read Infinite Jest. I don’t believe it. And what the hell is “Are you there God, It’s me Margaret” doing on this list? If they needed to pick a teen novel, there are 30 better than that. I also wonder why they picked the year 1923 as the starting point. What’s significant about that year?

The Adventures of Augie March

Animal Farm

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (what the hell?)

Beloved

The Blind Assassin

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Catch-22

The Catcher in the Rye

A Clockwork Orange

The Corrections

Death Comes for the Archbishop

The French Lieutenant’s Woman (TOTAL SUCKAGE!)

Go Tell it on the Mountain

Gone With the Wind

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Gatsby

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

Herzog

Invisible Man

Light in August

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Lolita

Lord of the Flies

The Lord of the Rings

Midnight’s Children

Mrs. Dalloway

Neuromancer

1984

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Portnoy’s Complaint (SUCKED!)

Possession

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Rabbit, Run

Slaughterhouse-Five

Snow Crash

The Sound and the Fury (Two Faulkners listed, but not “As I Lay Dying?” Shame.)

4 comments on “Time’s 100 Best Novels 1923-present”

Ok just a second,
Time magazine picking the 100 best novels?
It’s a bit late in the year for an April Fools joke.
What’s next
Boy George’s top 100 Rock and Roll bands
Ray Krocs top 100 French restaraunts
George Bush’s top 100 intellectuals
Time/Newsweek sux.
It’s written on a 6th grade level.
Just about every other week they have a picture of Jesus, St Paul, Virgin Mary on the cover.
This is alternated with the “New Mom”, the “New Monogamy” or the “New Whatever” issue to enlighten us of something that we’ve either known about for the last 10 years or is utter BS.
They have the habit of finding some group, say left handed uncyclists who speak Serbo-Croation and live in tents in US cities and proclaim it as a new “national trend”.

I was going to say “Hey, then starting in 1923 makes sense” but then… um, no.
I’m making a list of the best novels written since 1968 — the year I was born. Because you know, anything before that is crap. It’s really all about me anyway.